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Farewell

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Remember us? We are the missionaries that haven’t written any updates for quite a while. We will try to catch you up on some of the things that have been happening with us. At a restaurant near the village of Maliq As September began, life in Korçë began to change. We started seeing many parents and children out buying school supplies and books for the new year. There were still quite a few tourists in town, but the number of tourists diminished a little and we expect them to reduce drastically when school starts. The weather is absolutely beautiful now.  It is warm, but not hot during the day and cool at night. Dancing at a festival in the village of Bulgarec One aspect of Korçë culture has caught us off guard during the past few weeks. Most of the stores are small family-owned shops, so when they decide to go on vacation, they just close the store. We were running low on toner for our printer, so we went to the only shop we had found that has the right toner cartridge. There was a si
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Time Marches On

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Another month has flown by. June brought warm weather, sunshine, cherries, and watermelons.  Another change that has happened with the warm weather is that people go out walking almost every evening.  The parks here are well used. Recently we went for a walk in the park on a Tuesday evening and we were amazed at how many people were out.  They even block off the street in front of the park because there are so many people!  It was not a holiday or even a weekend – just a cool evening after a hot day. We love walking in the evenings and just wish we could communicate better with everyone we meet. Behind the hotel in Bajram Curri There was one evening, however, when hardly anyone was out walking.  It seemed very strange.  There is a path in the park that goes up by a forested area. It is not lit very well, but there are usually so many people walking there that we don’t feel the least bit in danger.  This night, however, the park was almost empty and we felt unsettled, so we didn’t take
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Spring in the Balkans - AGAIN

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Spring in Korçë has been an interesting experience. We felt like spring had arrived about 5 times with warmth and sunshine, only to revert to cold, wet winter yet again. We haven't put away our winter coats and umbrellas quite yet. However, because of the rain everything is lush and green. It is a beautiful time of year, even though we have to wash the car quite often. We definitely have distinct seasons here and so far we have enjoyed fall, winter, and spring.  We are sure summer will also be beautiful, whenever it arrives... At Lake Ohrid We were blessed to have our two daughters come for a visit near the end of April! While they were here, we were able to visit some roman ruins, a beach on the Ionian Sea, an incredibly beautiful spring called the Blue Eye, a UNESCO World Heritage City called Gjirokastër, our very own Korçë, and some beautiful places in North Macedonia along the shores of Lake Ohrid.  We had delicious Albanian food, gelato, and baklava (lots of baklava!).   We to
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Spring in the Balkans

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For a while, we were wondering if winter would ever end.  Finally, however, near the end of March the weather started warming up.  Unfortunately, this first Spring only lasted a couple of weeks and the cold, rainy weather returned. Over the past couple of weeks, however, we have had beautiful weather with sunshine and temperatures in the 70’s.  It still gets a little chilly when the sun goes down, but we like that. We hope this second Spring lasts until summer… There are a lot of ice cream shops in Korçë, but all but 2 have been closed since we arrived because most people here don’t eat ice cream when it’s cold.  They think it will make them sick.  A couple of weeks ago that all changed.  We’re not sure what the magic day was, but all of a sudden, all of the ice cream shops opened and everywhere we go people are walking around with ice cream cones! Most soft-serve cones cost just 50 cents, and even the nice gelato cones only cost $1.00, so we have indulged several times ourselves 😊 Ne
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